Taylor Fritz continued his impressive run of form at the 2024 ATP Finals, beating Daniil Medvedev in his first match at the event.
Both of these players entered the 2024 ATP Finals in a completely different form. While the American player only recently played in the US Open final, Medvedev has struggled tremendously.
He entered the tournament on a two-match losing streak, and including an exhibition event in between, the Russian player lost the last three matches that he played. After this match, the number increased to four.
Although these two players have already met four times on the tennis courts before, it was only their second Tour-level match. They previously competed in three different exhibitions, with Fritz winning all of those matches, but Medvedev triumphed in their only official match, which happened in Cincinnati two years ago.
Now, they were both motivated to kick-start the ATP Finals campaign with a win, as that might be essential with the reigning World No. 1, Jannik Sinner, who will receive support from the home fans, in their group.
Both players are great servers, so it was expected that there wouldn't be many break points on offer in this match. That proved to be true in the first set of this match.
Both held their serve comfortably, even though there were moments when both had to show their best to avoid facing break points. In the sixth game, Medvedev had to go through a deuce, and in the following game, his opponent had to do the same.
But with both winning their serves relatively easily, it looked like the opening set of this round-robin match was heading into a tie-break. But that didn't happen.
In the tenth game, Medvedev had a complete meltdown. He was up 30-15 on his serve when he served a double fault. After that, he served another one, and suddenly, his opponent had the first break point of the match.
As if that wasn't enough, the Russian player hit the third consecutive double fault to lose the first set 4-6. It was an absolutely bizarre end of the first set, with the former World No. 1 clearly not happy.
Still, Medvedev had a chance to start the second set well. He had two break points in the opening game of the second set, and then he had one more in the third game.
He couldn't use any of those chances, and so it was Fritz who could go into a one-break lead, as he had two break points in the fourth game. Again, the break points were not used.
But that changed only a couple of games later. The American player used his third break point of the set to break for a 4-2 lead and her held his serve after that to lead already 5-2.
Fritz then didn't lose another point on his serve, and he easily won the match 6-4, 6-3 to secure his first win at the 2024 ATP Finals. It was a crucial victory for him that brought him closer to a semi-final spot.
Medvedev, on the other hand, will need to hope for a miracle or beat Sinner, who will be one of his next two opponents at the tournament. The fourth player in this group is Alex de Minaur.